


Fush and Chups

by Alexandria (heartfullofelves)



Series: Torchwood Four [3]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: Accents, Crack, Culture Shock, Drabble Collection, Gen, Humour, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-13
Updated: 2015-07-14
Packaged: 2018-03-22 16:01:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 3,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3734929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartfullofelves/pseuds/Alexandria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Cardiff team learn to live with their new colleagues from the other side of the world. Drabble-collection sequel to Lost and Found in which the author makes fun of her own accent and culture.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sweet As

**Author's Note:**

> I have in fact written a short chaptered sequel to Lost and Found, which is being betaed. Until it’s ready to post, have this to tide you over.

As soon as Jack heard the familiar sound of the Rift alert, he was up from his chair in his office and hurrying to Calandria’s workstation. Callie was already tapping keys and staring at her screen.

“What have you got for us?” he asked, putting his hand on her shoulder and causing her to jump.

“Jack!” she exclaimed, clutching at her chest. Once she’d calmed down from her near-heart attack, she informed him that there had been what appeared to be a negative Rift spike in Canton.

Jack’s face darkened, but he didn’t explain why. He would tell her about negative Rift spikes when he thought she was ready – he hadn’t told Tosh and Gwen, and that had been a mistake. He didn’t want to make the same one with Calandria.

“Jack?” she asked when he hadn’t spoken after a full minute. “What is it? What does it mean?”

He shook his head to clear his thoughts. Right now, he needed to be focussed, and deal with the situation. “Nothing for you to worry about,” he replied, forcing the grin he saved for when he was lying through his teeth, the one that said, _How can you not trust me when I’m so charming?_ “I’ll go out there on my own, don’t even need any of the others.” He turned to go.

_Huh, can’t be that important_ , she thought, and let it go. “Sweet as.” She turned back to her computer, closing one programme and starting up another. She had important research to do.

He stopped, and slapped his own bum. “Thanks-” this time his grin was genuine- “but don’t you have work to do?”

Absorbed in a new activity, Callie didn’t look away from her screen. “What?”

“You said I have a sweet ass.” He turned back to look at her, frowning in confusion. _Short-term memory loss, or just not paying attention?_ he wondered.

“Eh?” This time, she shifted her gaze to meet his, and mimicked his frown. In her head, she replayed their conversation. Then she got it, and burst out laughing. “No, no, I didn’t say ‘sweet ass’! I said ‘sweet _as_ ’,” she explained with a snigger. “Although you probably do have a sweet ass, I just haven’t looked.”

“Now that is just insulting.” Jack pouted. “Don’t you know I have an ego that needs fuelling?”

She patted his arm in a very patronising way, trying to reassure him. “Don’t be offended, it’s not your fault I’m not interested.”

But everyone was interested in Captain Jack! He continued to pout, even as he went to get the SUV.


	2. Sitting on his Deck

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Much silly. Very crack. So immature.

It was a normal day at Torchwood, if that word could ever be used to describe a day at the alien-fighting organisation, and the team were having lunch in the boardroom. Ianto had ordered them Chinese and was showing off by being able to eat his noodles with chopsticks without the food falling back into the container. The others all used forks.

Red was in the middle of telling a story about the time he first met his first boyfriend’s parents. “I drove him home, more than a bit pissed, and half-carried him up the drive to his door. Only he tripped, and I fell on top of him, and then he spewed.” He gestured with his hands, as if the others didn’t know what vomiting looked like. “There was vomit _every_ where, and it was so gross that I spewed up as well, and when his parents finally opened the door, there I was, sitting on his deck, vomiting.”

Gwen, Jack, and Ianto all looked at each other. “Of course you were sitting on his dick, love,” Gwen deadpanned, taking a sip of water.

Red’s eyes shot to her. “No, _deck,_ ” he corrected. “I was sitting on his deck.”

Gwen and Ianto cracked up while Jack smirked.

“Deck! I was sitting on his _deck_!” Red repeated himself.

The Welsh members of the team howled with laughter, because every time he said _deck_ it sounded like he was saying _dick._ Jack had a big grin on his face as he watched Red’s cheeks go pink.

“His fucking deck!” the man yelled. “Deck, deck, deck!”

By now, Gwen was clutching her side as her whole body shook. “I have... to go... to the loo,” she puffed. She got up from her chair and ran.

Ianto was laughing into his hand, and met Jack’s eye. Jack winked. “You can sit on my deck-” only he mimicked Red’s Kiwi pronunciation of the word- “anytime, Ianto.”

“I already do, sir,” was Ianto’s smooth reply.

Red looked at Callie, his fellow countryman, and shrugged.


	3. A Box of Pens

Ianto was making a list of the team’s stationery requirements. He’d started with Callie, who had almost no need for stationery since she liked to do everything on her computer, moved on to Gwen, who had a list which included but was not limited to pens, paperclips, and staples, and then on to Jack. Jack’s requests had been extensive, not to mention suspicious. When Ianto questioned the captain’s intended purposes for some of the more dubious ones, Jack made salacious suggestions for their uses into the young man’s ear, causing his breath to hitch and his face to heat. Now Ianto approached Red.

“I’m making a stationery list,” he told the doctor. “Do you need anything?”

“Just a box of pins,” Red mumbled. He was chewing on a pencil, which caused Ianto to wince.

“Sure. Thumbtacks do?”

“Na, just ballpoint.”

The hand that was writing in Ianto’s little notepad stopped its movements. “Didn’t you say pins?” Ianto frowned.

“No, _pins_ ,” Red said the word with exaggerated care and mimed writing with a pen.

 _Ah, okay._ Ianto felt like slapping his forehead. “So you want a box of ballpoint _pens_.” The word sounded much different in his Welsh accent compared to Red’s New Zealand one.

“Yis pliz.”

Ianto was careful to hide his smirk as he completed his list and walked away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've had a similar thing happen to me. I asked my Malaysian classmate if I could borrow a pen and she thought I said pin, so I had to mime it. Oh, the joys of having a Kiwi accent. (I used to think there was no such thing, but then I went on holiday to Australia and came back and was like, "Oh shit, we all sound like unsophisticated idiots.")


	4. Ka Mate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ianto’s behaviour in this drabble will only make sense once I’ve published Pride and Paradox (the chaptered sequel to Lost and Found). However, June was the best time to set this chapter, and I had to make it correlate with the events and timeline of P&P. 
> 
> Thanks to Awatere11 for the inspiration! This one’s for you, mate.
> 
> Disclaimer: I am neither Maori nor a rugby fan (cricket is another story, and may make it into this drabble collection later), and Google didn’t tell me everything I wanted to know. So I’m very sorry for any mistakes.

One Friday night in June, New Zealand was playing Wales at Millennium Stadium. As much as Callie and Red, Gwen and Rhys had wanted to go, they hadn’t been able to get tickets, so they were all watching the rugby at Callie and Red’s shared flat. They’d managed to rope Jack into coming; Ianto had also turned up with a six-pack.

There were two sofas, one of which the girls shared. Although there was room for one more, they didn’t let any of the men onto it, not even Ianto, for fear of drunken – or even sober – food and drink spillages. Rhys and Red, both bulky blokes, were sitting on the other couch. This left Jack and Ianto stretching out their long legs on opposite sides of the carpet.

Just before the game began, the Welsh team sang their national anthem. The Torchwood team plus Rhys fell silent, and the Welsh half of the group raised their beers at the screen in a toast.

Then it was time for the New Zealand national anthem. Red sang along, already on the way to intoxication. Callie locked gazes with everyone else and grimaced at the man’s murdering of the song.

Jack and Gwen had gone to a rugby game in Auckland with Callie, Red, and Urbano back in December, but missed the start of it due to terrible traffic. They had therefore not seen the rituals the All Blacks performed beforehand. Gwen had an inkling, as she watched the rugby on telly from time to time, but Jack was clueless. So when the commentator announced that the All Blacks would perform the Haka, Red leant forwards in anticipation while Jack asked, “What are they doing?”

Callie shushed him.

On the flat screen TV, the All Blacks slapped their thighs, stomped their feet, and yelled, “Ka mate! Ka mate! Ka ora! Ka ora!”

Jack almost knocked over his beer, which was sitting on the Persian rug between him and Ianto. _What the hell?_ was his first impression.

“Ka mate! Ka mate! Ka ora! Ka ora!”

_Terrifying_ , was his second.

“Tēnei te tangata pūhuruhuru, Nāna nei i tiki mai whakawhiti te rā!”

_Wow, that’s actually kinda hot_ , was his third.

“Ā, upane! Ka upane! Ā, upane, kaupane, whiti te ra! Hi!”

The All Blacks finished by sticking out their tongues in a threatening manner, then turned away from the camera to take their positions on the field. Jack’s eyes were wide and his mouth open.

“Close your mouth or you’ll catch a fly,” Ianto drawled, taking a handful of crisps from the packet in his lap. This was the first time he’d spoken to Jack all night, and the two had barely glanced at each other.

Jack obeyed, shaking his head. “Strange 21st Century customs,” he commented.

Both Red and Callie frowned at him.

He tried to explain his reaction to the Haka. “I’m just saying-”

“Shush!”

It was time for kick-off.

* * *

 

At halftime, a victory for New Zealand over Wales looked inevitable, but Gwen, Rhys, and Ianto stayed optimistic. Jack asked what the words of the Haka meant.

Red grinned, glad to share his knowledge with the captain. “I die, I die, I live, I live,” he translated.

“Could be describing you, Jack,” muttered Gwen.

“The Maoris like to repeat things,” Red added, ignoring her cryptic comment. He continued, “This is the hairy person who fetched the sun and caused it to shine again. One upward step, another upward step. An upward step, another. The sun shines.”

“How do you _know_ that?” asked Callie. “Mr Monolingual, can’t even pronounce _Maori_.”

Red’s answer was to stare at her with his head cocked to one side.

She slapped her forehead. “My bad, it’s related to sport – of _course_ you would know that.” She rolled her eyes and sighed.

“What hairy person?” Jack asked.


	5. Ka Kite

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another great idea courtesy of Awatere11. You rock!

On a February evening when spring was just around the corner, Jack sent Red on a weevil hunt with Gwen and Ianto. Weevils were roaming the Cardiff streets in stronger numbers these days, so it was no longer safe for one of the team to go hunting alone. Jack gave Red specific orders to catch and not kill, not that the Kiwi needed them, since Torchwood Four’s policy never to kill aliens had been drummed into him.

Red grinned, face lit up with excitement. “Got it. Car kitty,” he added, saluting the captain, and left with his Welsh teammates for an action-packed night chasing human-sized sewer rats.

After working with Red and Callie for several weeks, Jack was able to begin picking up on some of their slang and colloquialisms. But just because he could recognise a word or phrase as part of their dialect and not of Gwen and Ianto’s, it did not mean he understood the meaning of everything they said. This was not the first time Red had called him “car kitty” when parting ways, and he vowed to get to the bottom of it.

Jack opened up Google in his browser. When he searched for “car kitty”, all that came up were images of _Hello Kitty_ cars. Frowning, he got out of his chair and joined Callie at her workstation. He would yell out for Gwen, Ianto, or Red to come to him but always went to Calandria himself, not wishing to distract her in the middle of an imperative calculation. Funny, he realised, he’d done the same with Tosh.

Callie was working on an equation on her screen when he approached, so he waited for her to look up and notice him before he spoke. “Just out of interest, why does Red keep calling me ‘car kitty’?” he asked.

“Car kitty?” she repeated with a frown.

“Yeah.”

She mumbled the phrase under her breath. Jack could see the cogs turning inside her head. “Oh!” she exclaimed after a moment’s thought. “You don’t mean _ka kite,_ do you? It’s Te Reo Maori for ‘see you later’.”

Jack shook his head. “It definitely sounds like he’s saying ‘car kitty’.”

She exhaled. “His pronunciation is terrible; Red should be banned from saying Maori words. I’m sure he’s saying _ka kite_.” She pronounced it _kar kee-te._

“So it’s not a pet name?” he checked, and she shook her head. “Damn, I thought it was cute, just for me.” He shrugged. “Well, carry on.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and walked away.


	6. Fish and Chips

Red and Callie were still settling into Torchwood Cardiff when a Rift alert beeped on Callie’s – previously Toshiko’s – computer. Remembering how to do one of the first things she’d learnt about her new job, she brought up a screen that provided information about the Rift activity that had just occurred.

“Location?” asked Jack, trotting up to her desk. The others followed, grouping around him and Calandria.

She peered at the screen. “Uh…” She glanced at Gwen and Ianto, then looked back at her screen. “Er, Sefin Sedan?” she attempted with a wince.

“Cefn Sidan.” Ianto’s smile said, _At least you tried_.

“Kevin Shidarn?” She grimaced at her own botched pronunciation.

“Maybe you could leave pronouncing Welsh place names to us, love,” Gwen suggested, and patted Callie’s arm. Her smile said, _Aw, bless._

“No, no, I love languages and would love to learn Welsh,” Callie disagreed. “I’m fluent in English and Spanish and can speak some Maori.” Red snorted at her immodesty, but she was just stating facts. “I haven’t mastered any alien languages yet, though.”

“Well, I’m sure Ianto can teach you Welsh,” declared Jack, putting his hand on Ianto’s shoulder. “He’s a good teacher, aren’t you, cariad?”

Ianto threw him a dirty look for using the C-word, and cleared his throat. “Anyway, Rift alert?”

Callie turned back to her screen. “Small Rift flare in… Cefn Sidan,” she said, and glanced back at Ianto, who nodded.

Gwen frowned. “Hold on – does the Rift extend that far?” Concern thickened her accent.

“Not usually.” Jack mirrored her frown. “Anything else, Calandria?”

She pursed her lips as she examined the information in front of her. “I have no idea what came through, but judging from the size of the flare, it’s something small?”

“Nope,” Jack grinned.

“Huh?” She turned to him.

“Never assume that the size of the Rift flare correlates with the size of whatever comes through,” Jack told her. When she frowned and stuck her tongue between her teeth in a display of confusion not often seen in a woman of thirty-two, Jack just said, “You have much to learn, Calandria Blanco Diaz,” and did not elaborate. “Right, team, looks like we’re going to the beach!”

* * *

It appeared that nothing had come through the Rift and that the flare was a false alarm. Callie hypothesised that there was a bug in the computer programme, but couldn’t confirm it until they returned to the hub, so, cold and with messy hair from the wintery blasts, the team piled into the SUV with no alien lifeform or technology.

Sensing the overall mood inside the car, Red piped up, “How about we stop somewhere for fush and chups on the way back?”

“Great idea, Red!” sang Jack. He was the only one who wasn’t swearing about bloody Torchwood taking them for a two-hour drive out west to Cefn Sidan, as he and Ianto had spent a good forty-five minutes rooting about the WW2 gun emplacements and historical buildings. “We’ll stop in Pembrey and get some _fush and chups_.” He exaggerated Red’s accent.

The man groaned. “What is _with_ you and making fun of my accent?”

“So long as we eat them _out_ side the SUV. I don’t want it smelling of _fush and chups_ when there’s a weevil in the boot – it might get hungry.”

“Et tu, Ianto?”

Gwen, who remembered having fish and chips with Clea and Mei at Mission Bay in Auckland, said, “We’ll have to ask for no vinegar on their _fush and chups_ ; I’m not sure they’d like that.”

Red was so disgusted that he didn’t even get annoyed at her for mimicking his accent. “ _Vinegar?_ ” he asked. “On your fish and chips?”

Gwen, Ianto, and Jack, who was driving, all turned their heads to look at him.

“What?”

He hadn’t even noticed that when he’d said _fish and chips_ that time he’d sounded Welsh.


	7. It's Not Cricket

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I like cricket, and whenever we play against Australia (but ONLY then!) I secretly hate Aussies too. But I love over-the-top Red so the opportunity was too good to miss.

Red had spent the whole first half of the 29th of March, from 4 in the morning onwards, with his eyes glued to the screen in the boardroom. A steady supply of beer and crisps gave him sustenance. Callie had continued to work, not as invested in the world cup final as her friend was, but switched tabs every ten minutes to check the score online.

“Lucky it’s been a slow week,” Gwen had remarked, and indeed, there had been no fieldwork to speak of. The team had spent the time filling in forms, writing overdue reports, or accepting Important Phone Calls from pretentious government agencies.

At around half past 12, there came an angry shout of denial from inside the boardroom. Callie rushed to change the tab, but the game results hadn’t been updated. She banged on the keys to refresh the page, and still there was nothing from the past five minutes. Sighing, she pushed away from her workstation and sprinted up to the boardroom.

Ianto placed a mug on Gwen’s desk. “It’s just what I feared,” he told her.

She smiled in thanks for the coffee, and shook her head. “Men and their sports.”

“I never have understood the point of cricket,” admitted Ianto.

Red yelled something about bloody Aussies and their lack of sportsmanship, and both Gwen and Ianto winced at the shattering of glass that followed.

“I’m not cleaning that up,” Ianto declared at the same time Gwen commented, “I don’t understand how he’s so calm about everything except for sport. I also don’t understand what he’s got against Aussies; I mean, I don’t exactly love the English, but I don’t hate them nearly as much as he hates Australians.”

“Callie said something him being in love with Drew when their Torchwood was still in Christchurch. If that means anything to you,” he added, for it was Greek to him.

“He was the one who moved to Australia. No wonder he hates the Aussies – they stole his man. I wouldn’t be happy about that either.”

Ianto was prevented from agreeing by the sight of Callie dragging Red through the hub. “I’m taking him home, he’s not emotionally fit for work,” she announced, and marched up to Jack’s office to inform him too. If Jack replied, Gwen and Ianto didn’t hear it, and soon Callie was leading Red out of the hub with a solid grip on his wrist. “See you later,” she called on her way out the cog wheel door.

“Bloody Aussies,” muttered Gwen, and sipped at her coffee.

“Bloody cricket,” murmured Ianto.

“Well thank god _that_ ’s over,” Jack announced as he skipped down the stairs to join them. “I was beginning to think I’d have wrinkles before the world cup ended.”

The three of them huffed a collective sigh of relief.


	8. I'm a Black Sheep

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Black Sheep is a song by Gin Wigmore that’s basically about being a free spirit, “No more beersies” is an NZ alcohol awareness campaign, and part of the connection I feel to the Welsh as a New Zealander is that we both get called sheepfuckers/shaggers as an insult.

Adjusting to life in Wales was difficult for Red. He appreciated the beer and rugby culture – that, at least, was familiar to him, as was his job as a Torchwood medic – but the rest of it was bloody hard.

He hadn’t broken his promise to Mei and Urbano to neither lose his accent nor start speaking the dialect – not once had he said, “What’s occurring?” – he had to remind himself not to say “bucks” when he meant “pounds”, and he refused to convert from Wattie’s canned spaghetti to the more popular baked beans on toast. When he and Callie did the weekly supermarket shop for their flat, they often had to show humility and text Ianto for his counsel.

Torchwood was called away to London to deal with an emergency that UNIT said should have been fixed by some doctor who hadn’t arrived yet. Red had no idea who this unnamed doctor was, but the team saved the day without his help, so he couldn’t have been that important.

Afterwards, Jack went to a meeting with someone called Lizzie, telling his team to go and enjoy themselves. Red announced that he wanted to experience an English pub, and Gwen, Ianto, and Callie joined him.

They walked into the pub talking at top volume, no surprise when both Gwen and Callie were present; _Women can be so bloody noisy_ , he’d thought to himself on more than one occasion since starting work at Torchwood Cardiff. But he and Ianto were chatting too, so he couldn’t criticise his female friends for being talkative.

“Oi look, it’s a whole group of sheepfuckers,” a loud, obnoxious, and Australian voice sneered. “Baaaaa.”

Both Gwen and Red stepped forwards with tense shoulders and clenched fists, but their friends held them back.

“Sheep are gorgeous, but I’d never-”

“Shut up, Red,” Ianto murmured. “Not helping.”

“But they aren’t sex objects!” Red hissed.

“Listen, _mate_ ,” Callie told the drunken man with a pointed finger, gripping Red’s arm, “my friends and I came for a beer, not your racist slurs. Now I’m sure you wouldn’t insult two nationalities with one unintelligent comment if you were sober, and you’d hate yourself for doing something stupid while on the piss. So no more beersies for you, and I hope you get home safe.”

The man glared, but got up and fled with his tail between his legs.

“See ya.” Callie flashed him a shark-like grin. She then turned to Red and said, “I feel a bit like Gin Wigmore now.”

It took him a second, but then he belted out the main part of the chorus of Gin’s song _Black Sheep_ , and she joined in.

Gwen and Ianto exchanged looks of equal confusion and amusement as their friends sang out of tune.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you have any requests for drabbles in this series, just ask. Otherwise this might be the last I’ll write about our Callie and Red (though I have planned a prequel about Torchwood Four set in 1902).


End file.
